Medical imaging systems/scanners (e.g., positron emission tomography (PET), computed tomography (CT), etc.) are typically used for diagnostic purposes. Patient movement during medical imaging, however, can result in degraded image quality and reduced diagnostic confidence. Two primary sources of patient movements are head and neck motion and respiratory motion.
Conventional solutions to correct for patient movement in medical imaging have significant drawbacks. One such technique consists of recording motion data from an electronic device attached to the patient (e.g., a waist band attached to the patient) to monitor the patient movement, while the patient is being scanned by the medical imaging scanner. Motion correction is performed through post-processing of the scanned data by correlating the scanned data with the motion data. In addition to the problems caused by the electronic hardware itself such as difficult placement on the patient, delays may be present between the scanned data and the motion data. Movement of the electronic device itself on the patient's body may occur during the scan. Another technique involves using a video monitoring system to detect the patient movement from a video recording of the patient during the scan. The motion data detected by this video monitoring system usually lacks accuracy, and patients find video recording of their medical examination intrusive. Thus, these motion correction methods not only are invasive and uncomfortable, but also result in inaccurate or erroneous motion correction of the scanned data.